This document provides an overview and analysis of Virginia Woolf's novel "Orlando: A Biography". It discusses Woolf's life and background, a summary of the plot of Orlando which involves the main character transforming from male to female. It analyzes how the novel explores ideas of gender identity and how gender roles are a social construct rather than biological. It discusses how Orlando serves as a symbol for how one's core identity can remain constant despite external changes in gender or era.
2. Personal Information
● Name : Gopi Dervaliya
● Roll no. 08
● Sem : 2
● Paper Name : The 20th Century Literature:1900 to WW2
● Paper no. : 106
● Paper Code : 22399
● Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of English
● Email : gopidervaliya02@gmail.com
3. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Virginia Woolf
‘Orlando : A
Biography’
About the novel :
02
About the Author :
01
Example :
04
Gender Identity
in'Orlando’
03
Laxmii (2020 Film)
4. •Virginia Woolf was an English author, feminist, essayist,
publisher, and critic, considered as one of the foremost
modernists of the twentieth century along with T. S. Eliot, Ezra
Pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.
•Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on 25 January 1882, the
daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, editor of the Dictionary of
National Biography, and of Julia Stephen.
∆ About the Author
Virginia Woolf
5. •According to Woolf's memories, her most vivid childhood memories were not
of London but of St. Ives in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer
until 1895.
•This place inspired her to write one of her masterpieces, ‘To the Lighthouse’.
•Woolf came to know the founders of the Bloomsbury Group.
•She became an active member of this literary circle.
•She is a lovely and very human creation, a woman who, by virtue of her
beauty and charm.
Continue…
6. •Virginia's most famous works include the novels ‘Mrs Dalloway’ (1925), ‘To the
Lighthouse’ (1927) and ‘Orlando’ (1928), and the book-length essay ‘A Room of
One's Own’ (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money
and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
∆ Her Famous Works :
7. •Woolf did try to fictionalize the history of female writers
in her fantasy novel ‘Orlando: A Biography’.
•The biographical novel spans different ages through the
life of the protagonist and transforms from a man to a
woman in between the novel.
•Woolf traces the effect gender has on their experiences
due to the changing condition of writers through the ages.
∆ About the Novel ‘Orlando:A Biography’ :
8. Continue…
•In a way, Orlando is a fictionalized form of Woolf’s ideas of sexuality and
female identity in England.
•The sex change of Orlando may be interpreted in different ways.
•The novel begins with the famous line that depicts the androgynous nature of
the protagonist,
“He – for there could be no doubt of his sex,
though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it” (13)
•By the end of the novel, the country house to which Orlando was an heir
becomes open to the public, and Orlando becomes a woman.
9. ∆ Gender Identity in'Orlando : A Biography’
•Woolf's tale is full of mystical and somewhat fantastic
events.
•Perhaps the most obvious example of fantasy within the
novel is the title character's sudden change of gender.
•The novel, Orlando, brings forward important topics
such as gender categorization, gender roles and identity
issues.
•The main protagonist goes through a transformation in
which she goes from male to female.
10. Continue…
•One of the key concepts in the novel ‘Orlando’, by
Virginia Woolf, is the idea of gender.
•In Orlando, gender roles are a concept that is imposed on
people by society rather than a biological state.
•Orlando goes through the experience of finding her
gender identity and another discovery came about.
•This discovery was that gender roles are, more than
anything, a social construct.
11. Continue…
•Woolf’s desire for identification led her to the genre of
biographical novel, as is observed in Orlando.
•Orlando becomes a symbol of a constant personality
traveling through centuries, imbibing the traces of external
alterations.
•Orlando as a fiction imbibes the historical and social
changes adopted by Orlando, however, his/her self remained
unaltered.
12. Continue…
•Therefore, the question that has been comically put forth
by Woolf in ‘Orlando’ is if it is only the social constructs,
and surrounding that shape or re-shape a woman and is it
only the clothes that “make the (wo)man”.
•Orlando demonstrates the influence on her of not only
the “psychoanalytical age” but also of the notion of
essentialist identity.
•The question related to identity in Orlando makes it
important for the feminist revolution.
•Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is an impressive example of
gender identification.
13. Continue…
•Addressing the roles of men or women and what they
should be.
•The author not only challenges the stereotypical
understanding of masculinity behavior but also
explores situations where gender characteristics are
transfigured or evolved.
•Furthermore, Woolf implies that gender is a choice or
an act limited by society and era.
14. Laxmii
•A 2020 Indian Hindi-language horror comedy, written
and directed by Raghava Lawrence
•It stars Akshay Kumar as Aasif Ahmed and Kiara
Advani as Rashmi Rajput
• The story of a young boy who is born with a female
body
• A transgender person named Laxmi
•The film explores the challenges and discrimination
faced by transgender individuals in India.
15. Citations
•*Adam Burgess, Name. “Orlando by Virginia Woolf: Gender and Sexuality through Time.” Literary
Ladies Guide, 1 Oct. 2022, https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/book-reviews/orlando-by-virginia-
woolf-gender-identity-and-sexuality-through-time/.
•Bullett, Gerald. “Virginia Woolf.” The English Journal, vol. 17, no. 10, 1928, pp. 793–800. JSTOR,
https://doi.org/10.2307/803301. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
•"Gender Identity in Orlando." Premium Papers, 18 Apr. 2022, premium-papers.com/gender-identity-
in-orlando/.
•"Gender Identity in "Room of One’s Own" and "Orlando"." IvyPanda, 20 Mar. 2021,
ivypanda.com/essays/gender-identity-in-room-of-ones-own-and-orlando/.
•Melita, Maureen M., and Muareen M. Melita. “GENDER IDENTITY AND ANDROGYNY IN
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO’S ‘ORLANDO FURIOSO’ AND VIRGINIA WOOLF’S ‘ORLANDO: A
BIOGRAPHY.’” Romance Notes, vol. 53, no. 2, 2013, pp. 123–33. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/43803261. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
16. “We write, not with the fingers,
but with the whole person.”
- Virginia Woolf
